EcoEquity

Carbon Majors Funding Loss and Damage

Ready for a stimulating new cut across some old territory? Think about “responsibility,” and take a look at Carbon Majors Funding Loss and Damage, a discussion paper by Julie-Anne Richards and Keely Boom of the Climate Justice Project — “an independent not for profit, non-government organisation that uses the law to expose environmental and human rights issues relating to climate change.”

Among other things, the analysis here includes the idea of corporate — rather than national — historical responsibility. In fact, it shows “that a small number – fewer than 100 – entities have a significant responsibility for the climate change currently being experienced.” More generally, it’s based on the idea that private entities that have profited from, and continue to profit from, the fossil-fuel economy should be responsible for a good fraction of the “loss and damage costs” associated with carbon pollution.

This is a ground breaking idea, and it deserves a lot more attention, in this our unfortunate age of corporate personhood. “Persons,” after all, have responsibilities as well as rights.